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Space News Update — November 27, 2015 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1: NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation

Story 2: ExoMars Prepares to Leave Europe for Launch Site

Story 3: Aging Star's Weight Loss Secret Revealed

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

Space Calendar

NASA-TV Highlights

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Receives First Mirror Installation

NASA has successfully installed the first of 18 flight mirrors onto the James Webb Space Telescope, beginning a critical piece of the observatory’s construction.

In the clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland this week, the engineering team used a robot arm to lift and lower the hexagonal-shaped segment that measures just over 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) across and weighs approximately 88 pounds (40 kilograms). After being pieced together, the 18 primary mirror segments will work together as one large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) mirror. The full installation is expected to be complete early next year.

“The James Webb Space Telescope will be the premier astronomical observatory of the next decade,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This first-mirror installation milestone symbolizes all the new and specialized technology that was developed to enable the observatory to study the first stars and galaxies, examine the formation stellar systems and planetary formation, provide answers to the evolution of our own solar system, and make the next big steps in the search for life beyond Earth on exoplanets.”

Several innovative technologies have been developed for the Webb Telescope, which is targeted for launch in 2018, and is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Webb will study every phase in the history of our universe, including the cosmos’ first luminous glows, the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, and the evolution of our own solar system.

The 18 separate segments unfold and adjust to shape after launch. The mirrors are made of ultra-lightweight beryllium chosen for its thermal and mechanical properties at cryogenic temperatures. Each segment also has

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a thin gold coating chosen for its ability to reflect infrared light. The telescope’s biggest feature is a tennis court sized five-layer sunshield that attenuates heat from the sun more than a million times.

“After a tremendous amount of work by an incredibly dedicated team across the country, it is very exciting to start the primary mirror segment installation process" said Lee Feinberg, James Webb Space Telescope optical telescope element manager at Goddard. "This starts the final assembly phase of the telescope."

The mirrors must remain precisely aligned in space in order for Webb to successfully carry out science investigations. While operating at extraordinarily cold temperatures between minus 406 and minus 343 degrees Fahrenheit, the backplane must not move more than 38 nanometers, approximately one thousandth the diameter of a human hair.

"There have many significant achievements for Webb over the past year, but the installation of the first flight mirror is special," said Bill Ochs, James Webb Space Telescope project manager. "This installation not only represents another step towards the magnificent discoveries to come from Webb, but also the culmination of many years of effort by an outstanding dedicated team of engineers and scientists."

The mirrors were built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. Ball is the principal subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for the optical technology and lightweight mirror system. The installation of the mirrors onto the telescope structure is performed by Harris Corporation of Rochester, New York. Harris Corporation leads integration and testing for the telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. NASA works with the international science community to explore our solar system and beyond. We look to unravel mysteries that intrigue us all as we explore to answer big questions, like how did our solar system originate and change over time, and how did the universe begin and evolve, and what will be its destiny?

You can follow the mirror installation on a live webcam by visiting:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/webcam.html

To learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/webb

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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2. ExoMars Prepares to Leave Europe for Launch Site

The two ExoMars spacecraft of the 2016 mission are being prepared for shipping to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ahead of their launch in March.

A joint endeavour with Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, ExoMars comprises two missions. The Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Schiaparelli make up the 2016 mission, while the 2018 mission will combine a rover and a surface science platform. Both missions will be launched on Russian Proton rockets from Baikonur.

TGO and Schiaparelli are undergoing final preparations at Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France, where they were today on display for media to view for the last time before they leave Europe. They will be shipped separately in the middle of next month, arriving at the cosmodrome on 21 and 23 December, respectively.

“It’s been a long road for ExoMars to reach this point, but we are now ready to launch in spring next year,” says Alvaro Gimenez, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration. “We are about to begin a new era of Mars exploration for Europe and our Russian partners.” Sergey Saveliev, Deputy General Director of Roscosmos, says: “ExoMars is a unique example of the Russian–European cooperation in deep-space exploration. “The mission of 2016 is just the first stage of our cooperation and, in the future, Roscosmos and ESA plan many joint projects to explore near and deep space.”

Donato Amoroso, deputy CEO of Thales Alenia Space, notes, “For Thales Alenia Space, our lead role in the extraordinary ExoMars programme, as producer of the orbiter and the entry, descent and landing module for in situ exploration of Mars, entails huge technological and human challenges.”

The first ExoMars is scheduled for launch on 14 March, at the start of a launch window that remains open until 25 March. After a cruise of almost seven months to Mars, Schiaparelli will separate from TGO on 16 October for its entry, descent and landing in the Meridani Planum region on 19 October.

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TGO, along with ESA’s Mars Express and NASA satellites already orbiting Mars, will relay data for the few days that Schiaparelli is expected to operate on its batteries. Schiaparelli is primarily a demonstrator to prove a range of technologies enabling controlled landings on Mars in future, but it also carries a small science package to analyse its local environment once on the surface.

Meanwhile, after a series of aerobraking manoeuvres in 2017, TGO will enter orbit around Mars, from where it will take a detailed inventory of the gases in the planet’s atmosphere.

Of special interest are the abundance and distribution of methane: its presence implies an active, current source, and TGO will help to determine whether it stems from a geological or biological source. “TGO will analyse ‘trace gases’ in the atmosphere,” says Håkan Svedhem, ESA’s project scientist. “Even though they make up less than one percent of the atmospheric inventory, they should provide key indicators to the nature of any active processes, helping us to determine just how ‘alive’ Mars may be today. “TGO will also monitor seasonal changes in the composition and temperature of the atmosphere, and will map the subsurface to look for hidden water ice.”

Finally, TGO will also relay data from the rover and surface science platform of the 2018 mission.

Source: ESA Return to Contents

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3. Aging Star's Weight Loss Secret Revealed

A team of astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured the most detailed images ever of the hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris.

These observations show how the unexpectedly large size of the particles of dust surrounding the star enable it to lose an enormous amount of mass as it begins to die. This process, understood now for the first time, is necessary to prepare such gigantic stars to meet explosive demises as supernovae.

VY Canis Majoris is a stellar goliath, a red hypergiant, one of the largest known stars in the Milky Way. It is 3040 times the mass of the Sun and 300 000 times more luminous. In its current state, the star would encompass the orbit of Jupiter, having expanded tremendously as it enters the final stages of its life.

The new observations of the star used the SPHERE instrument on the VLT. The adaptive optics system of this instrument corrects images to a higher degree than earlier adaptive optics systems. This allows features very close to bright sources of light to be seen in great detail [1]. SPHERE clearly revealed how the brilliant light of VY Canis Majoris was lighting up clouds of material surrounding it.

And by using the ZIMPOL mode of SPHERE, the team could not only peer deeper into the heart of this cloud of gas and dust around the star, but they could also see how the starlight was scattered and polarised by the surrounding material. These measurements were key to discovering the elusive properties of the dust.

Careful analysis of the polarisation results revealed these grains of dust to be comparatively large particles, 0.5 micrometres across, which may seem small, but grains of this size are about 50 times larger than the dust normally found in interstellar space.

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Throughout their expansion, massive stars shed large amounts of material every year, VY Canis Majoris sees 30 times the mass of the Earth expelled from its surface in the form of dust and gas. This cloud of material is pushed outwards before the star explodes, at which point some of the dust is destroyed, and the rest cast out into interstellar space. This material is then used, along with the heavier elements created during the supernova explosion, by the next generation of stars, which may make use of the material for planets.

Until now, it had remained mysterious how the material in these giant stars' upper atmospheres is pushed away into space before the host explodes. The most likely driver has always seemed to be radiation pressure, the force that starlight exerts. As this pressure is very weak, the process relies on large grains of dust, to ensure a broad enough surface area to have an appreciable effect [2].

"Massive stars live short lives," says lead author of the paper, Peter Scicluna, of the Academia Sinica Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan. "When they near their final days, they lose a lot of mass. In the past, we could only theorise about how this happened. But now, with the new SPHERE data, we have found large grains of dust around this hypergiant. These are big enough to be pushed away by the star's intense radiation pressure, which explains the star's rapid mass loss."

The large grains of dust observed so close to the star mean that the cloud can effectively scatter the star's visible light and be pushed by the radiation pressure from the star. The size of the dust grains also means much of it is likely to survive the radiation produced by VY Canis Majoris' inevitable dramatic demise as a supernova [3]. This dust then contributes to the surrounding interstellar medium, feeding future generations of stars and encouraging them to form planets.

Notes [1] SPHERE/ZIMPOL uses extreme adaptive optics to create diffraction-limited images, which come a lot closer than previous adaptive optics instruments to achieving the theoretical limit of the telescope if there were no atmosphere. Extreme adaptive optics also allows much fainter objects to be seen very close to a bright star.

The images in the new study are also taken in visible light shorter wavelengths than the near-infrared regime, where most earlier adaptive optics imaging was performed. These two factors result in significantly sharper images than earlier VLT images. Even higher spatial resolution has been achieved with the VLTI, but the interferometer does not create images directly.

[2] The dust particles must be large enough to ensure the starlight can push it, but not so large that it simply sinks. Too small and the starlight would effectively pass through the dust; too large and the dust would be too heavy to push. The dust the team observed about VY Canis Majoris was precisely the right size to be most effectively propelled outwards by the starlight.

[3] The explosion will be soon by astronomical standards, but there is no cause for alarm, as this dramatic event is not likely for hundreds of thousands of years. It will be spectacular as seen from Earth perhaps as bright as the Moon but not a hazard to life here.

Source: Spaceref.com Return to Contents

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The Night Sky Friday, November 27

Before and during dawn, Venus shines within 5° of Spica from tomorrow through December 2nd. Tomorrow morning, look also for 2nd-magnitude Gamma Virginis (Porrima) just to Mars's left, as shown here.

Algol is at minimum brightness, magnitude 3.4 instead of its usual 2.1, for a couple hours centered on 7:04 p.m. EST (per new predictions).

Saturday, November 28

By 8 or 9 p.m. the waning gibbous Moon is up in the east-northeast. It's in Gemini; look left of it and perhaps a bit higher for Castor and Pollux. Farther to the Moon's right or upper right, Orion is moving up.

Sunday, November 29

By 10 or 11 p.m. now (depending in how far east or west you live in your time zone), the dim Little Dipper hangs straight down from Polaris.

Monday, November 30

Two faint fuzzies naked-eye: The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Perseus Double Cluster are two of the most famous deep-sky objects. They're both cataloged as 4th magnitude, and in a fairly good sky you can see each with the unaided eye. They're located only 22° apart, high in the northeast these evenings — to the right of Cassiopeia and closer below Cassiopeia, respectively. But they look rather different, the more so the darker your sky. See for yourself. They're plotted on the all-sky constellation map in the center of the November Sky & Telescope.

Source: Sky & Telescope Return to Contents

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

For Denver: No sightings until December 2

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Daylight Time)

Monday, November 30

10 a.m., Video File of the ISS Expedition 46-47 Crew Departure from Star City, Russia for Baikonur, Kazakhstan (all channels)

12:30 p.m., NASA Welcomes Orion’s European Powerhouse for Testing from NASA Plum Brook Station (all channels)

Tuesday, December 1

7:30 a.m., ISS Expedition 45 In-Flight Event for JAXA (Starts at 7:40 a.m.) (all channels)

Watch NASA TV on the Net by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

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Space Calendar • Nov 27 - Cassini, Distant Flyby of Epimetheus & Enceladus • Nov 27 - Comet 226P/Pigott-LINEAR-Kowalski At Opposition (1.018 AU) • Nov 27 - Asteroid 28600 Georgelucas Closest Approach To Earth (1.450 AU) • Nov 27 - Apollo Asteroid 4450 Pan Closest Approach To Earth (1.551 AU) • Nov 27 - Asteroid 6594 Tasman Closest Approach To Earth (1.902 AU) • Nov 27 - Asteroid 19034 Santorini Closest Approach To Earth (2.029 AU) • Nov 27 - Kuiper Belt Object 145453 (2005 RR43) At Opposition (38.468 AU) • Nov 27 - 15th Anniversary (2001), 1st Atmosphere Detection on an Exoplanet (Osiris HD 209458 b by

Hubble Space Telescope) • Nov 27 - 45th Anniversary (1971), Mars 2, Mars Landing (1st Manmade Object to Reach Mars Surface) • Nov 27 - 45th Anniversary (1971), Mars 2, Mars Orbit Insertion • Nov 27 - Anders Celsius' 315th Birthday (1701) • Nov 28 - Mars Winter Solstice • Nov 28 - Comet 146P/Shoemaker-LINEAR Closest Approach To Earth (1.374 AU) • Nov 28 - Apollo Asteroid 5143 Heracles Closest Approach To Earth (0.148 AU) • Nov 28 - Asteroid 17898 Scottsheppard Closest Approach To Earth (1.227 AU) • Nov 28 - Asteroid 10195 Nebraska Closest Approach To Earth (1.687 AU) • Nov 28 - Asteroid 31000 Rockchic Closest Approach To Earth (1.969 AU) • Nov 28 - Asteroid 716 Berkeley Closest Approach To Earth (2.012 AU) • Nov 28 - Barbara Morgan's 65th Birthday (1951) • Nov 29 - Cassini, Titan Flyby • Nov 29 - Comet P/2015 R2 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (3.255 AU) • Nov 29 - Asteroid 422 Berolina Occults HIP 24447 (6.6 Magnitude Star) • Nov 29 - Asteroid 12258 Oscarwilde Closest Approach To Earth (1.966 AU) • Nov 29 - Asteroid 316201 Malala Closest Approach To Earth (1.516 AU) • Nov 29 - Asteroid 4151 Alanhale Closest Approach To Earth (2.013 AU) • Nov 29 - 55th Anniversary (1961), Mercury 5 Launch (Enos the Chimpanzee) • Nov 30 - Comet 278P/McNaught At Opposition (4.306 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 20] Asteroid 869 Mellena Occults HIP 22833 (5.2 Magnitude Star) • Nov 30 - [Nov 20] Apollo Asteroid 369264 (2009 MS) Near-Earth Flyby (0.070 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 20] Amor Asteroid 3352 McAuliffe Closest Approach To Earth (0.517 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 20] Asteroid 249521 Truth Closest Approach To Earth (0.895 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 21] Asteroid 4330 Vivaldi Closest Approach To Earth (1.176 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 21] Asteroid 6524 Baalke Closest Approach To Earth (1.254 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 21] Asteroid 8299 Tealeoni Closest Approach To Earth (1.451 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 21] Asteroid 2848 ASP Closest Approach To Earth (1.698 AU) • Nov 30 - [Nov 22] 70th Anniversary (1946), Colford Meteorite Fall (Boy Reportedly Knocked Off

Bicycle in UK) • Nov 30 - [Nov 22] Eric Elst's 80th Birthday (1936) • Nov 30 - [Nov 22] Bruce Murray's 85th Birthday (1931) • Nov 30 - [Nov 22] Ernst Chladni's 260th Birthday (1756) •

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Katherine Johnson: The Girl Who Loved to Count

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.” So said Katherine Johnson, recipient of the 2015 National Medal of Freedom.

Born in 1918 in the little town of White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson was a research mathematician, who by her own admission, was simply fascinated by numbers. Fascinated by numbers and smart to boot, for by the time she was 10 years old, she was a high school freshman--a truly amazing feat in an era when school for African-Americans normally stopped at eighth grade for those could indulge in that luxury.

Her father, Joshua, was determined that his bright little girl would have a chance to meet her potential. He drove his family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where she could continue her education through high school. Johnson's academic performance proved her father's decision was the right one: Katherine skipped though grades to graduate from high school at 14, from college at 18.

In 1953, after years as a teacher and later as a stay-at-home mom, she began working for NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA. The NACA had taken the unusual step of hiring women for the tedious and precise work of measuring and calculating the results of wind tunnel tests in 1935. In a time before the electronic computers we know today, these women had the job title of “computer.” During World War II, the NACA expanded this effort to include African-American women. The NACA was so pleased with the results that, unlike many organizations, they kept the women computers at work after the war. By 1953 the growing demands of early space research meant there were openings for African-American computers at Langley Research Center’s Guidance and Navigation Department – and Katherine Johnson found the perfect place to put her extraordinary mathematical skills to work.

As a computer, she calculated the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Even after NASA began using electronic computers, John Glenn requested that she personally recheck the calculations made by the new electronic computers before his flight aboard Friendship 7 – the mission on which he became the first American to orbit the Earth. She continued to work at NASA until 1986 combining her math talent with

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electronic computer skills. Her calculations proved as critical to the success of the Apollo Moon landing program and the start of the Space Shuttle program, as they did to those first steps on the country's journey into space.

From honorary doctorates to the 1967 NASA Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft and Operations team award (for pioneering work in the field of navigation problems supporting the five spacecraft that orbited and mapped the moon in preparation for the Apollo program) Katherine Johnson has led a life positively littered with honors. But on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, she will receive the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from President Barack H. Obama.

Not bad, for a little girl from West Virginia, who coincidentally (or maybe not) was born on August 26: Women's Equality Day.

On the Web: She Was a Computer When Computers Wore Skirts Katherine Johnson: A Lifetime of STEM

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 Lunar Module Intrepid

Explanation: The Apollo 12 Lunar Module (LM), in a lunar landing configuration, is photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Modules (CSM) on Nov. 19, 1969. The coordinates of the center of the lunar surface shown in picture are 4.5 degrees west longitude and 7 degrees south latitude. The largest crater in the foreground is Ptolemaeus; and the second largest is Herschel. Aboard the LM were astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., commander; and Alan L. Bean, lunar module pilot. Astronaut Richard R. Gordon Jr., command module pilot, remained with the CSM in lunar orbit while Conrad and Bean descended in the LM to explore the surface of the moon. Image Credit: NASA

Source: NASA Image of the Day Return to Contents